move, what he had consumed, several steins, needed to be got rid of. The hesitation, whether to use the toilet or not, allowed him to see that as soon as the pair walked on, a couple of Brownshirts appeared from the shadows to fall in behind them.
‘That was not the finest meal I have ever consumed,’ Cal said, ‘but the wine was OK.’
‘Take it for what it was, free.’
That brought a happy smile. ‘It’s nice to eat on someone else’s expenses.’
‘I hope my boss in New York knows about fine Moselles.’
‘If you like I’ll write him some recommendations, the Germans make some very superior wines.’
‘He drinks beer.’
‘Then he should have come instead of you, Bohemia is the home of beer.’
Cal, as he said that, made to cross the road, which naturally allowed him to look behind him. The two fellows in uniform and jackboots made no attempt to avoid his eye, indeed the way they were looking at him and Corrie, it was as if they were lining them up for the firing squad.
‘We are being followed.’
‘Big deal, we’re not going anywhere.’ Corrie looked back and waved, which made the pair look even more grim than before. ‘Nice guys, cheerful.’
‘The trouble with Fascism is that it allows the real shits to have a bit of power. Give an idiot a uniform and he will do anything you want him to do to keep it.’
For all his flippancy, it was worrying that they were being tailed, even if it was obvious. At some point Cal had to make contact with Veseli and there were no arrangements in place, which left it all to the other man.
‘They’re gonna demand to see what I write before we leave, aren’t they?’
‘Probably more than that, Corrie; once they’ve approved it don’t be surprised if they want to cable it to New York for you.’
‘Damn,’ she spat, taking his arm.
‘So I have to get you back to Prague in time to correct what they receive. Best make two sets of notes, let them see one, the flattering stuff, and keep the real copy on you at all times.’
That had Cal’s arm squeezed tightly, which he enjoyed. ‘Are you training me to be a spy, Cal?’
‘Much more devious that that, my dear Corrie,’ he grinned, ‘I’m helping you to be a journalist.’
‘“My dear?”’ she said softly, and questioningly.
Their promenade had brought them to the crowded central square, clearly the old central marketplace, where loudspeakers were playing Goebbels’ speech to a large mixed assembly, many of them in uniform, some holding flaring torches, all listening intently one minute, then crying out in passion the next, and that made them stop.
‘He’s still going strong.’
‘Public radio,’ Corrie said. ‘On the streets, just like Times Square.’
‘You should visit Germany, they have this in every main street, square and in the railway stations — loudspeakers on the buildings and lamp posts to tell the population what to think.’
Cal had got it wrong about the length of Goebbels’ speech, for the little mountebank was coming to the end of his peroration, his voice hoarse, his demands for the nation to be faithful to the Fuhrer and his iron will like some gospel preacher, the crowd now screaming at his every word so that it melded into one indistinguishable howl, with the same from the far end of the square.
Now the radio started billowing out martial music as, no doubt, Goebbels was played off the podium to march down an avenue of thousands of cheering supporters, hundreds of banners, and illuminated with swaying searchlights. Both Cal and Corrie had seen the newsreels and whatever you thought about the Nazis it had to be admitted they knew how to stage such an event.
Not to be outdone the local Nazis in their brown uniforms were forming up, the civilians moving out to form an avenue down which they could pass; clearly they had decided to march through the town with their flaring torches and their own massive swastika banners.
Having assembled at the bottom of the square in ranks, a shouted order filled the air and they were moving. Cal and Corrie stood to one side as they came closer, the boots cracking on the cobblestones loudly enough to be heard even over the sound of their raucous singing.
The men were dressed like their escorts, who were now standing with their arms outstretched in their fascist salute: dun-brown uniform shirts buttoned to the neck, gleaming jackboots and riding breeches, a Sam Brown-style belt and shoulder strap and a swastika armband.
‘That, if you don’t know the tune, is the “Horst Wessel Song”, Corrie. He was one of those idiots I told you about who was stupid enough to get himself killed in a street brawl with the Communists. Now he’s a Nazi martyr.’
It was the soft, kepi-type forage cap that had stopped Cal from really looking at the man leading the parade, two flag-carrying acolytes a pace behind, goose-stepping with his arm up, a tall very Aryan figure, and it was only when he got really close and he could see the face that he realised that he was looking at the man he had been introduced to as Captain Karol Veseli.
The head did not turn, not even the eyes flicked sideways as he stamped by, so Cal, unsure if he had been spotted, raised his hat so that his face was in full view, an act which shocked Corrie.
‘Jesus, what are you doing?’
‘Making friends locally, Corrie, which, if you want your story, you better get doing too.’
Jimmy Garvin, well back, had been able to keep tabs on Corrie Littleton by just watching those following her, without having the faintest idea of where it would lead; he certainly did not want to be seen or to talk to her, it was more in the nature of something to do.
‘Christ Almighty!’
He actually swore out loud when he saw that hat come off the head of the man he had been told was Callum Jardine and the sight did not fit with what Vernon Bartlett had told him, which, while not a fully formed picture, had been underlined by one very salient fact: Jardine was a rabid anti-fascist.
What was a man with his background, albeit that it was mysterious, doing raising his hat to a bunch of Brownshirt thugs? Jimmy Garvin might be young but he was not stupid and even if he did not know it yet he was already imbued with something that could only be called a nose for a story.
Right now he was thinking this was all wrong and there were only two conclusions to draw from that. One that Vernon Bartlett was wrong about this Jardine, or that this man with a funny background was up to something here in the Sudetenland, and he was inclined to plump for the latter. The question was, should he contact Bartlett and ask for instructions?
That he decided against that was hardly a surprise; handed a possible scoop no journalist, however much he’s a tyro, is going to give it away to anyone else. The really hard question was, how was he going to pursue it?
At that same moment Cal was wondering about Veseli, even more certain that was not his real name in this neck of the woods. But he was less worried about how he was going to make contact; in that outfit he could walk right into the Victoria Hotel and just say hello.
CHAPTER TWENTY
B ack in his room Cal checked to see if it had been searched while he was out, discovering that if the person who had done the looking had not been good enough, the job had been carried out very professionally indeed.
Not a sock or a shirt was out of place and his canvas bag was exactly where he had left it, as were the things he had used to wash and shave before dinner. The letters from Redfern International Chemicals, which he had left on the dressing table, would have been examined too.
Naturally, the bed had been turned down and the heavy coverlet folded back by the room maid, a standard act in any hotel, which had made it impossible to employ the normal precautions on the door. This would also cover for any small movements that occurred with his visible possessions should the searcher make a mistake.
The small slip of folded paper he had inserted into the base of one of the drawers was just where he had left it, but missing was the single strand of his now very short red-gold hair that had been folded inside, one so small it
